Surface Grinder Initial Tooling

Just a word of advice about buying initial wheels. You do not get superior finish (necessarily) by using a finer wheel. An old grinder hand once told me he only used 46 grit wheels for over 30 years. I've seen his work, and it was superb. Get used to your initial 46 grit AO wheels first. then try other things later. Changing wheels often can confuse things when you are first starting out.
 
This is a lot of great advice. I'll be rereading this. A small addition to your supplies would be oils and oil cans if you don't already have them. My Reid grinder has over 20 lubrication points, many in awkward positions. When I rebuilt it, many were dry or clogged. I find a small pump can with a flexible spout makes it easier to get oil into all those little oil cups rather than all around them. I use 30 weight non detergent on the ways, gears, and screws. I use #10 spindle oil on the spindle.
 
My 1946 B & S 2L has well over 20 lube points, maybe 30, most of them awkward to get to. For some I use way oil, for the rest I use lubricating oil. The plain bearing precision ground tapered spindle, turning in bronze bearing boxes, has a constant level oiler that uses Velocite #3 spindle oil, ISO 2 (!). It is about the same viscosity as kerosene, and needs to be, spindle to bearing clearance is .000110" (110 millionths.) (edit: 110 millionths is actually .0000110", I left out a zero...) No dirt, grit, lint, or anything else but the special oil allowed in there!
 
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A quick word about grind wheel adapters: I have found the WM Sopco technical staff to be very helpful. They probably have fielded inquiries about your grinder model before. Since this is their only biz, the would be great to talk to about getting an adapter. The part you mentioned from grizzly does not include the washer and nut, for instance. Add the extra cost for these and you are close to, if not more than a Sopco adapter FWIW. Best of luck with your new grinder! :excitement:
 
benster said:
Ok, given all of that info I'll buy the stock adapter from Grizzly.

Doubleeboy - would an open structure wheel function well as a roughing wheel also in that case? I could get one open structure wheel, then a finer grit for finishing.
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Once you get some experience you will likely find that you can do a ruff dressing on the wheel and then after you have ground your work close to dimension, redress the same wheel for a fine grind. To see the variety of work that can be done with one wheel is eye opening. You can make a 46 grit wheel behave like a 60 or 80 grit wheel if you dress it correctly. Lots of practice. What works for me is a fast pass taking 3-5 tenths for opening the stone up and truing it. Then after roughing work to near size , retrue wheel for fine work by taking slower passes taking maybe 2 tenths or less off per pass and spark out a couple times after last downfeed. Other more experienced hands might feel differently but this is working for me.

One thing I don't think anyone mentioned that you need is a nice hand stone that is very smooth to deburr your parts and magnetic chuck before putting work on chuck. Wipe chuck with hand to feel for burrs, stone em out, recheck with hand. If you do this religiously your chuck will thank you, good habit to get into right from the start.

Anytime you have time to kill and want to watch youtube, the Suburban Tool videos are highly recommended.
 
+1 on the Suburban videos - Suburban has 300 grinder hands at peak, and know their stuff. . Try also 'THATLAZYMACHINIST' on utube... He was a shop instructor and includes every detail. Very good for starting out.

- Some other youtubers show some questionable or even dangerous practices (such as using the mounted diamond backwards).
 
Doubleeboy said:
One thing I don't think anyone mentioned that you need is a nice hand stone that is very smooth to deburr your parts and magnetic chuck before putting work on chuck.
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Precision flat stones! Got mine made. They do an effortless job on my 6x18 magnet in a few seconds. It is amazing how they go from cutting to smooth as glass with just a few swipes across something like a grinding chuck. On something more rough it takes a little longer, but much less than you might suspect. Also, the coarse side and the fine side of the stones cut nearly the same, and neither leaves any scratches at all, just polished metal. The surface grinder is the machine to make them on, so no excuses...
 
I'll have to look into making some down the road. I saw the episode where Stefan Gotteswinter talks about them.

I got the hub and belt from grizzly in. The hub has a 1 1/4 in OD for the wheel, and the flange is about 3" OD. So I assume I should look for a wheel that's 8" OD 3/4" thick? When I need another hub I'll measure the taper and get a wmsopko hub. This grizzly one is cheaply made..
 
If that adapter seems to fit your grinder, then go with it. Usually you can use thinner wheels than the maximum capacity in an adapter, so you can instead fit a half inch or a quarter inch thick wheel in the 3/4" adapter if you so wish, as long as it tightens down on the wheel. I think you should stay with the 3" flanges on your grinder for safest operation.

Precision flat stones:
 
Thought I'd post an update. A 220V VFD, 46 grit Norton wheel, and diamond dresser bit are on their way. I still need to make an arbor to balance the wheel, so I'll do that while the other stuff is in shipping. Since most of my tooling and machines are in a different walled off section of my shop I figure I can get by with a shop vac for now. I'll eventually setup a flood coolant system before I get into "bigger" work like grinding the chuck in.

Regarding the magnetic chuck, it sat in an uncontrolled climate in a Galveston shop, so there is significant surface rust and pitting on the top. The bottom surface that mounts to the table seems fine. In order to minimize the wheel wear and grinding time I plan on mounting it to the bridgeport and using a flycutter to cut all the patina/rust off. I'm not going to actually grind it in until I have some experience, as suggested. Any thoughts on this?
 
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